How To Do A New British RPG

Malcolm Craig · October 31, 2009, 05:08:49 PM

Quote from: J Arcane;341265Not familiar with the game. Apparently it just came out very recently? Site seems to indicate it's more of a post-apocalypse game.

That's true enough. Very heavily influenced by the likes of J G Ballard, John Wyndham, films like 'The War Game' and 'Threads', television such as 'Quatermass' and 'Edge of Darkness'. So, yes, I do think Hot War is particularly British in tone. Any questions about it happily answered.

Cheers
Malcolm

Ronin · October 31, 2009, 05:37:24 PM

Quote from: noisms;341462Britishness these days is pretty much entirely defined by "Things aren't what they were/the country is going to the dogs/it weren't like that in my day/what's the world coming to?" type sentiments. The entire atmosphere is one of relentless pessimism, fuelled by a horrendously cynical and powerful media and a breakdown of any sort of moral authority in society.

So any RPG which sets out to capture the tone of modern Britain is probably going to have to be a cyberpunk game, or (even better) post-apocalyptic - so as to properly reflect the bleak outlook of the natives.

I cant believe I didnt think of this before. But if we're looking for a british post apoc, based in PA London (Whitechapel), written by an englishman (Warren Ellis), and thats awesome on top of all that. Someone should be looking into making "FreakAngels" an RPG.

Pelorus · November 03, 2009, 05:18:50 PM

Quote from: Ronin;341428I would be all about this!

Well, I'm happy enough to share what I've done so far.

But if you've not watched any eps of "The Sandbaggers" then you're doing yourself a mischief!

.. For the dystopian sense of "This is Britain", what about Children of Men
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_men
Really reminded me of some of the Alan Moore run on "Captain Britain".

Pelorus · November 03, 2009, 05:26:38 PM

Quote from: Hubert Farnsworth;341416Bizarre nobody's mentioned Pratchett who is about as English as they come and whose finest creations are modelled very closely on English archetypes (Arcane University, the Watch, the Witches, funny foreign cultures based deliberately on the depictions of them to be found in English childrens books of 50 or 100 years ago etc).

We might also add Douglas Adams here. He's the writer of the middle class alien invasion dystopia. Accurately characterises the nation as a population of administrators and hairdressers. And sadly dead.

Quote from: Hubert Farnsworth;341416Similarly I can't imagine Iain M Banks's SF being written by anyone who is not from this side of the Atlantic - and the Culture setting would work very well with a rules light narrativistic system like HeroQuest.

Iain M. Banks' work is very different to anything else I've read. I wasn't 100% sold on MATTER but I've had a lot of fun reading all of this Culture novels. In fact, this would work well over Google Wave.

Ronin · November 04, 2009, 02:45:48 AM

Quote from: Pelorus;342025Well, I'm happy enough to share what I've done so far.

Please do! I would love to check it out.

Pelorus · November 07, 2009, 03:54:16 AM

Quote from: Ronin;342082Please do! I would love to check it out.

Everything I've finished is here:

http://www.lategaming.com/category/game-design/control/

The rest is really unfinished. Inclding a cross-group interaction mechanism that I need but isn't designed yet

Malladin · November 07, 2009, 04:07:33 PM

Britishness is not just one thing or attitude country wide. When we did Etherscope we tried, not as successfully as I'd like, to capture a northern British feel. What was interesting to us was looking had cultural trends from Victorian times, the 80's and contemporary idea's, particularly of social grouping and conflict, and seeing the changes in regard to self identifying social groups. A great source for British cyberpunk that would make a good RPG with a very British flavour looking at the same themes would be Peter F Hamilton's Greg Mandelson series of books.

GRIM · November 07, 2009, 04:47:17 PM

Quote from: Malladin;342619Britishness is not just one thing or attitude country wide. When we did Etherscope we tried, not as successfully as I'd like, to capture a northern British feel. What was interesting to us was looking had cultural trends from Victorian times, the 80's and contemporary idea's, particularly of social grouping and conflict, and seeing the changes in regard to self identifying social groups. A great source for British cyberpunk that would make a good RPG with a very British flavour looking at the same themes would be Peter F Hamilton's Greg Mandelson series of books.

Held the rights for a short while, nobody was interested.

Malladin · November 08, 2009, 09:57:58 AM

Quote from: GRIM;342624Held the rights for a short while, nobody was interested.

That's sad to hear as those books really have a uniquely British cyberpunk flavour and the Britain of the setting is a great background to set games against.